The Consultant's Handbook

The Consultant’s Handbook

by Flo DiBona

The Consultant's Handbook – Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 by Flo DiBona

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The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work, which have been used for reference only and without permission. The publication use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Consultant

Source: Wikipedia.com

Source: TheFreeDictionary.com

Consulting

So You Want To Be a Consultant...

But Seriously…

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of a Consulting Life

Direct Employment Versus Consulting

Full-Time Employees

Consultants

Self-Employed and Independent Consultants

W2 Contract Consultants

Full Time Staff Consultants

The Consultant Tool Bag

Degree

Experience

Curriculum Vitae, Resumes, and Qualifications

Curriculum Vitae

Resumes

Qualifications

References

Publications

Homework

Administrative

Client

Self-Improvement

Health

Traveling Consultants

Work-at-Home Consultants

Hardware

Cell Phone

Laptop, Tablet, or Desktop

Software

Microsoft or Open Office

Adobe Acrobat

Microsoft Visio and Project

Email, Calendar, and Contact Management

Other Tools

Professional Email Account

Credit Card

Global Positioning System

The Starbucks Club

Consultant Skill Sets

Hard Skills

Typing

Writing

Analysis

Presentations

Soft Skills

Attitude

Patience

Flexibility

Cooperation

Observation

Articulation

Communication

Reliability

Presentation Delivery

Logistics

Calendars and Scheduling

Local versus Travel

The Consultant at Home

Working From Home

Environment

Time Management

Cooperation

The Home Office

At Home Between Trips

Organization

Departing and Arriving

On the Road

Life Without a Consultant

Unattached Consultants

Spouses and Partners

Children

The Single Person Lifestyle

Lifelines Home

Long-Term Travel

Housing

Transportation

Airports – Not for the Squeamish

Airlines

Baggage

Security

Transportation

The Hotel

Comfort and Functionality

Location

Making the Most of Hotel Time

Rewards Programs

Airlines

Hotels

Car Rentals

Credit Cards

Meals

On the Bench

Opportunities

Catch Up

Exploration and Research

Training and Certification

Marketing and Sales Support

In-House Project Contributions

Balancing Work and Life

Making the Most of the Bench – The Extra Step

The Company Office

Opportunities

The Client Site

The Client-Consultant Agreement

Mostly Second Class Citizens

Meetings

Hygiene and Appearance

Personal Hygiene

Appearance and Dress Codes

Fitting In

Professionalism

Performance

Breaks and Lunch

Full-Time Employee Dramas

Conduct Off-Site While on Travel Status

Socializing

Socializing with Colleagues and Other Consultants

Socializing with Clients

Expectations

Yours

Theirs

Someone Else’s

The Rest of the World

Consultant Reporting

Time Reports

Billable versus Non-Billable Hours

Status Reports

Expense Reports

Other Reports

Keys to Success

Good Habits, Practices, and Skills

Expertise

Reputation

Location

Make It Look Easy

Keys to Failure

Attitude

In Over Your Head

Motivation

Ten Things Not To Do

One -Disrespect and Inconsideration

Two – Superior Attitude

Three – Lies and Misrepresentation

Four – Conducting Personal Business

Five – Absenteeism and Lateness

Six – Sharing Proprietary Information

Seven – Incomplete or Missing Tasks

Eight – Unprofessional Appearance

Nine – Arguing or Fighting

Ten – Inebriation and Incapacitation

Diving In Head-First

Stories from the Consultant Trenches

The Scapegoat

Perception Is Nine-Tenths of the Law

An Expensive Degree Does Not a Good Consultant Make

Caught In the Middle

Master-Slave Mentality

A Consultant's Office Can Be Anywhere

Airport Gates

Hotel Lobbies

Cafeterias

Budgetary Cuts and Redirection

Becoming A Subject Matter Expert

The Client Always Knows Best

One Thing Leads to Another

Acronyms

About the Author

Acknowledgments

First and foremost I thank God for giving me the opportunity to write this book. I thank my family for their support, especially Danny Willis for the hours he spent proofreading and providing invaluable feedback. I thank Pastor Sandra Jones for her spiritual guidance, her unwavering belief in me and all I do, and her uplifting words whenever I need them.

Thank you to Ken Pomeroy, Esquire and Colin Grose who, separately, I have worked side-by-side with throughout the years delivering various complex projects. We have shared the good, the bad, and the ugly of consulting, in a profession that often leaves you feeling like a lone island. Your camaraderie during those times made some of the more challenging experiences we shared much easier. Ken, our shared experiences, especially the last, made us stronger and thank God we can look back now and laugh. Colin, we made a great team who at times had to take turns peeling each other off the ceiling with the astounding things we dealt with and faced, but we were always able to work together to solve them. Thank you both for taking the time to review the draft manuscript and lend your valuable time, expertise, insights, observations, and suggestions to make it a much better book.

I thank Barb Munro, co-founder, and Kari Cipriani, Director of IT Talent Management at the Carrera Agency for carving time out of their very busy schedules to review the draft manuscript. Your insights, feedback, and suggestions helped me see the material from a completely different perspective and were extremely helpful.

Many consulting companies are job shops, caring little for the consultant or the appropriateness of their fit with a client or project. Their primary and seemingly only goal is making money and there is little regard or respect for the people making the money for them by delivering products and services to their clients. I want to acknowledge and thank The Carrera Agency for being the first consulting company I have encountered that treats their consultants with respect and views them as talent needing to be placed in the right situation and environment to succeed. They are genuinely interested in the success of both their consultants and their clients, and they always operate with integrity and respect. Thank you to Barb Munro, Morgen Richmond, and Team Carrera for the opportunity you provided me, the tools you gave me to be successful, the unwavering interest in my success, and your continued friendship.

Thank you to the many places where I had the space and environment to work on this book. In particular thank you to the Extended Stay America in Birmingham, AL, and the Lawndale, CA and Malibu, CA branches of the Los Angeles County CA public library system. Thank you to all the Starbucks outlets and staffs who know me and were so kind to let me spend hours sitting and working. They always made me feel welcome and always knew I was going to order a bacon breakfast sandwich with no bacon on it before I ordered it. Special thanks to Chris Hatanelas and his wonderful staff at Sacks on the Beach, Redondo Beach, CA where I found an incredible sanctuary to complete this book along with delicious organic foods, and always a welcome, friendly, warm vibe.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge all those who may work in different industries but share common ground in the field of consulting with similar challenges, experiences, and successes. You have brought credibility and professionalism to this field and made it viable for myself and others to grow and thrive within it.

Flo DiBona, Redondo Beach, CA, February 2014

Foreword

This book is intended for those individuals interested in becoming a consultant, those curious about the world of a consultant, and those consultants who might be looking for some tips and tricks to make their lives easier.

Consulting is more than a career choice it is a way of life. When starting out it can feel like you have to figure everything on your own and that you are the only one on the planet having to figure it out.

Being a consultant affects everyone around you, especially your family. While it can be a very rewarding career, it is also one that can require one-hundred percent of your focus, time, and energy during both business and non-business hours. It can be very hectic at times and requires a very strong worth ethic, a can-do whatever-it-takes attitude, and the tenacity to successfully deliver a product or service within sometimes impossible time constraints.

There is a Catch-22 in the workplace today that didn't exist previously. For most of the twentieth century the workforce went to school, often without higher education, and then went off to work. They apprenticed or started their careers at the lowest levels of a company's career path ladders and worked their way up that ladder by building on-the-job experience. Workers learned new skills and developed their careers through on-the-job training and being partnered with someone who taught them how to do a job. Much of the workforce tended to stay with one company their entire careers and would ultimately retire from the same company they started out in. The children of workers would often join the same company and follow the same career path as their parents.

Higher education was generally reserved for professionals such as doctors, lawyers, nurses, engineers, educators, and accountants. Highly educated people who did not pursue these professions filled upper management positions in companies but at the same time there was plenty of room and opportunity for less educated workers to work their way up the ladder and into these management positions through hard work and experience.

In the late part of the twentieth century as new technologies began to emerge this model began to change. The introduction of new technologies brought with it both opportunities and challenges. Opportunities were everywhere for people to become early adopters and help create, expand, and support new technologies as they emerged. At first there was no school curriculum to support these advances because they were so new, continuously changing, evolving, and expanding. Some of the old workplace model held up as early technology adopters learned about the technologies, how to expand on them, use them, support them, and train others on them. Higher education, while always attractive, was not necessarily essential or prerequisite to advancing a career. At that point in the evolution of the workplace and technology, innovation, imagination, and how well someone grasped the concepts of technology and put them to practical use could often outweigh experience and education in the workforce and in hiring decisions.

As institutional education and the workplace began to catch up and adopt technology, teach it, support it, and use it, the workforce continued to evolve in kind. Many of the jobs and tasks that workers previously performed were replaced by technology solutions. A divide began to occur in the workforce as blue collar jobs began to disappear. Companies began to require a more educated workforce. New technology curriculums emerged and standardized teaching methods, testing, and certifications were developed around them. Widespread use of apprenticeship, mentoring, and on-the-job training models were slowly being displaced by baseline skill sets proven through college degrees programs. Advertisements for help wanted went from no experience required, and will train, to degree required, and/or experience required. This change created a gap in the potentials of the workforce versus the requirements of the workplace.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century the model changed even further. The world was entering a global market and with it a global workplace. Positions that had previously been filled by middle America's laborers and blue collar workforce were now being outsourced and shipped overseas to countries who provided cheaper factory labor and cheaper, more educated blue collar workers.

At the same time, employment practices were becoming much more sophisticated than ever before as formal resource management methodologies emerged. Employment requirements began to refocus on higher education requirements and more experience as the supply of existing workforce resources and newly graduated resources increased and open positions decreased.

Today, competition for jobs is at an all-time high. It has allowed companies to offer less and demand more. Yet another new workplace model has emerged. This one is defined by two distinct workforces; an uneducated, lower-educated, and unskilled workforce; and a higher, highly educated, highly skilled workforce.

This new model offers smaller, narrower opportunities for the workforce as a whole. The majority of positions for the uneducated, lower-education, and unskilled labor force today are part-time offering low wages with no benefits. This practice seems to give hiring companies an advantage by avoiding